by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
While it’s going to be a big old pain in the butt to do, I’m getting really serious with a fundamental reboot of the allegorical thriller of the Trump Era I’m writing right now. I’m rereading a book on how to develop characters. And I think I’m going back to browsing a lot of different books about the nuts and bolts of actually writing a professional-grade novel.
I have my dream of writing a novel that won’t embarrass me within my sights, if nothing else. But I have to stay focused. I really do. I can’t keep getting distracted by how stupid everything is. I just want to write a breezy, fast and plupy novel set in the “Before Times” of the Trump Era before COVID19.
I am well aware that things are moving so fast that some very important aspects of the novel might come off as quaint. But I keep thinking about how Apocalypse Now came out after the thing it was about — the Vietnam war — was over for nearly a decade.
Anyway, I just have to stay focused. I have a really great idea I’m working on. I just can’t let my deadline slip too much. I really want to wrap the first draft up by no later than Election Day, or maybe Thanksgiving. Given how distracting the real world is.
But the key thing is, I have to stay focused on my vision. At this point in development (and writing,) this is not about what other people’s needs for the novel, it’s about mine.
